Here is a modern, authoritative, and readable history of Manitoba written by a well-known native of that province. "My native province," says Professor Morton, "has always seemed to me an unusual and fascinating place, possessed at once of a history of great interest and a deep sense of history." The narrative begins with the early year of the seventeenth century when the fur trade around Hudson Bay began, and covers every step in the growth of Manitoba from those days to the present. Interwoven are the essential themes of immigration and patterns of settlement, conflict and compromise among the many national and religious groups in Manitoba, the development of a distinctive economic and social structure, the growth of political consciousness, and the deep-seated conflict between the east-west and north-south axes.